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September 08, 2014

While I was in Shetland, I also watched sheep—in addition to those I saw at the Cunningsburgh show. I could have spent the whole time running around looking at flocks, but I had other types of research to do that needed to precede the conversations I might have with the sheep and their people (for the most part). I did visit some flocks. But I also simply noticed which sheep were where.

This black sheep was not where it belonged, nor where it wanted to be.

It was actually loose, and able to get out onto the main road leading to the airport (the A970, which is the main north/south route). In the photo above you can see the road with the airport beyond it. Lots of sheep ramble around without fencing in Shetland, but not intentionally in locations like that. So before I went to the Jarlshof historic site, I stopped in at the nearby Sumburgh Hotel (which looks like a terrific place to stay) and asked at the desk if they knew who to notify about the errant sheep.

They got in touch with the owner. I noticed a while later (while I was touring Jarlshof) that he came by, and then there were three sheep outside the main enclosure, but all effectively blocked from getting to the road.

Those are sheep in Shetland, but they are not sheep of the Shetland breed. They are also in a location where there is grass and where their welfare can be monitored on a regular basis. The “which sheep are where?” question hinges, for the most part, on those two factors.

These Suffolk tups (rams) grazed in lush surroundings near the Crofthouse Museum: again sheep in Shetland, but not sheep of the Shetland breed.

Of course, I saw plenty of Shetland sheep of the Shetland breed as well. A number of Shetland tups were in inbye fields (inbye being close to houses, as opposed to hill-grazing areas), enjoying some feasting before they go to work in the fall ensuring that there are plenty of lambs next spring.

However, Shetland sheep are easiest to find if you get out away from the main human habitation areas: away from two-lane roads, and into places where there are single-tracks with passing lanes. Rumble across the subtle barrier of a cattle grid* and start driving more carefully, because sheep will be next to and wandering on the road. I don’t know if there are any other breeds in these areas, but I doubt it. Many people assure me that any other type of sheep won’t survive in that environment and without closer attention. Shetlands have a reputation for hardiness.

* British English. US English = cattle guard. Called this even when it’s sheep that are being kept from crossing outside the area.

I went to visit a flock that is fenced but lives on rougher pastures than the inbye sheep. These are the ewes. . . .

. . . and these are the handsome rams.

They’re owned by Mary Macgregor, who has published a book of Fair Isle patterns collected by Robert Williamson and whose croft is as close to Foula as I got.

On the way to see Mary and her sheep, I also passed a spot where a flock had been gathered for shearing. These are the post-haircut crew. I counted six shearers working, most with hand shears although at least one set of electric shears ran off a generator.

Nearby were some question marks. There appeared to be a mix in this field. That’s likely a Shetland on the left. The one in the middle has a Texel-y appearance (face, set of the ears, and stance). The one with its head down has four horns. There are genes for this in the Shetland breed, but they aren’t common. The tail would provide additional information, but the photo doesn't show its shape clearly enough and I didn’t take the time to get permission to go into the field or to simply ask the owner. At that moment, I didn’t really need to know; the pieces of information I filed mentally were “mixed flock” and “interesting horns.” Again, this was pasture, carefully maintained, and close to the relevant house.

In Shetland-spotting, the first giveaway is location. Another clue: color. White Shetlands abound, but colors also appear frequently, especially in the hill sheep. (Inbye Shetland sheep tend toward the white and moorit, or solid brown, and at this season were often rams. Colored sheep could also be Zwartbles, but they’re bigger and have a characteristic marking pattern of white-on-black—not at all like the markings on the sheep below right—and will be in the cushier digs.)

Shetlands (through the windshield):

Shetlands:

Shetlands (the fence is behind them, and I took the photo from the road):

Shetlands, wandering around on top of a fairly bleak hill reached by a gravel, potholed road, and home to telecommunications sites, both currently functioning and abandoned:

Shetland, sheltering, not far from those other two:

Driving down the other side of that hill, different types of sheep began to appear as I got lower and closer to where people were living. These are likely Shetland-Cheviot crosses.

These are Shetlands (great color on the righthand one).

Scottish Blackface: another sturdy breed, able to live on rough turf, but not let loose on the hills with the Shetlands for many reasons.

On St Ninian’s Isle, a mix of crosses, with lots of green to eat and not too far from the tending humans.

Another thing that I became more familiar with was the predators that cause the most losses of lambs and weak sheep. For the most part, in Shetland that means birds, and I suspect they are primarily a problem to the hill flocks.

For example: the bonxie, or Great Skua. This one was flying over St Ninian’s Isle.

Another concern is ravens (and PDF here). I’m pretty sure that’s what these were; I’m only a casual birdwatcher, but the only crows in Shetland are hooded crows, which can also do a lot of damage to a flock, and they aren’t all-black like these birds (which I saw before they took flight).

Understanding the threats to a breed of sheep is also part of getting a good idea of what “hardiness” means and what influences people’s decisions of which types to put in particular environments and how to manage them.

Ending on a more directly sheep-y and positive note, I did get to visit with Mary and Tommy Isbister at Burland Croft Trail, and their sheep (it was their poultry I met with earlier in my trip).

On my walk around the croft, I met up with some caddie lambs (bottle lambs in North America). This one had just had a good snack and had a face and neck covered with milk-spray.

While I was out at Mary’s, she took this photo of me. Windblown, but not rain-soaked.

Even the rainy days were good for sheep-spotting, although the clear days were better. I saw a few hundred sheep, maybe a thousand. That wasn't enough, but it was all I could fit into this trip.

September 04, 2014

This post is about why I didn’t get to either Fair Isle or Foula, two of the locations on my “must see” list when I arrived in Shetland. They're both islands that are part of Shetland but at some distance from the primary vertical cluster of islands. I did know that “must see” would have to be as flexible as everything else on my list. Getting to each of those locations requires the cooperation of the weather.

Access to both is by boat (mailboat or passenger-only ferry) or air. Going by sea takes much longer. The air option is more likely to be cancelled or aborted by weather conditions. Neither runs daily, even when everything is on schedule, which it was not during my time in Shetland. You have to think ahead about what day it is, which transportation methods are operating, and whether your choice is likely to successfully reach its destination or need to turn back.

For Fair Isle, the friend I intended to visit there said that I would need to plan to return to Shetland’s Mainland at least five days before my scheduled flight out in order to leave room for delays. Thus any trip to Fair Isle would need to happen within the first part of my Shetland time. As it turned out, my friend was on Mainland herself during those days, because she had meetings that she needed to be at and couldn’t otherwise be sure that she’d be able to be on the right island at the right time. (We did have opportunities to visit during my travels . . . in Lerwick.)

Foula can ordinarily be visited in a day trip—but only, in that case, by air, because the ferry takes too long and doesn’t run daily. Again, which day and the weather have to be taken into account. Other factors intervened there.

So here’s what I saw of Fair Isle and Foula, and how I saw them.

Fair Isle

When I came out of Jarlshof, the multi-layered historic site near the south end of Shetland’s Mainland, the day was so clear and beautiful—and I’d already spent so much time indoors—that I decided to check out the coast hiking trail to Sumburgh Head.

It’s well marked, if, as you can see, not trodden into a thoroughfare.

I made it about halfway along the route from Jarlshof to the lighthouse on its promontory when the narrow trail began to follow the edge of a precipitous drop-off that was located on the same side as my more-arthritic hip. In addition to the fact that it was a long way down onto a bunch of rocks in churning water, I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. And it’s true that people are lost off Shetland’s cliffs into the sea (due to wind, most often, which doesn’t rule out just a slip of the foot). I didn’t want to be an objectlesson for future visitors, so I called it a good walk already, turned back, retrieved my little rental car, and approached the lighthouse by road instead. Because the car park (parking lot) is at the bottom of a hill, I got another good hike in up to the top.

From the rocky cliff just south of the lighthouse, I got a good look at Fair Isle on the horizon.

Here’s a closer look to distinguish it from some of the lower clouds.

Even when the weather is fine elsewhere in Shetland, a flight to Fair Isle can be forced to turn back because of suddenly appearing fog. I think the island may attract fog.

I took that photo on one of the clearest days during my two weeks in Shetland: I likely wouldn’t have made it to Fair Isle even if I’d planned to go then. (This was also three days before my departure flight to Aberdeen, so it wasn’t an option anyway.)

Foula

Foula was complicated for other reasons. As I mentioned above, going over and back in a single day by boat isn’t an option. In addition, air service is currently curtailed.

The folks (and sheep) I wanted to visit were also dealing with the aftermath of a fierce rainstorm and some flooding. It was not the time for me to come barging in, even if I could have arranged to get there.

I did get a nice clear view of Foula from the west side of Mainland on a clear day.

This is the same day, and a closer view of the island, although obviously the cloud situation and shimmering light have shifted.

It’s out there somewhere. I could just make it out when the subtle shifts of light put enough contrast into the shades of blue-gray.

A few more notes

Shetland is diverse, variable, and splendid. It behooves one to be aware of the hazards, a few of which are marked.

Lerwick and other establishments have enjoyed both bright days and battering here for a long time—humans and sheep have been living in Shetland for millennia. To understand the sheep, it’s necessary to understand the environment. I got more experience with that during this trip, which still only allowed me experience of the moderate types of weather.

The photo above was taken a few yards from the photo below, on a different day.

(The reflected building in the water just above isn’t the same one as in the preceding picture.)

I don’t think rainbows ever become commonplace, but I saw many: in this case, a double one with both full arcs visible.

September 03, 2014

The key to success for my recent trip to Shetland consisted of two parts: (1) a series of goals, defined yet amenable to constant modification, and (2) a very flexible schedule.

For example, on my first visit to see a particular flock of sheep at Burland Croft Trail, it was raining; I didn’t have the right boots on (because I didn’t actually think I was going to find the location); and while we had an "any time" agreement, my inadvertent arrival coincided with a time when the people I meant to see had needed to run into Lerwick unexpectedly.

So between raindrops I met some other members of the extended community.

And we had some nice conversations.

Including a bit of group discussion, as the weather permitted.

Although even the Shetland natives ran for cover when the sky-water got more enthusiastic.

I went into the shed, where there was information on the croft and its activities, and a pile of beautiful fleeces. I got answers to a few of my questions just by looking at the fleeces.

And I went back another day, shortly before I left Shetland, and enjoyed a lovely visit with Mary and Tommy Isbister and their sheep. I also got to see photos and the actual garments for a number of one-of-a-kind creations made by their gifted daughter Sanna Isbister, who lives in West Cork, Ireland. (I bought giclée prints of two of Sanna’s paintings, one of Gypsy—an image you can see on the site—and one of a young Shetland ram. Ah, it can be found, too: “Kenny,” here.)

Then there was another day when I set out to do something . . . right now I don’t remember what it was, but it wasn’t possible, and that impossibility may have involved rain . . . so I went to Jamieson & Smith to peruse the fleeces downstairs in the room that has the handspinners’ selection.

This time of year is part of the shearing season. As I arrived, a truck pulled up with a trailer full of wool.

I’m not entirely sure where they offloaded the bags, because every available cranny was already crammed. In fact, it wasn’t so easy to get to the wool room downstairs, because of the massive piles of wool. J&S could use some more space. They might get it some day, but it sure isn’t there now.

So instead of heading down to the wool room, I spent the morning with wool buyer Oliver Henry while he worked on mostly grade 2 wools (grade 2 going into the baler, with some grade 3 behind him, and grade 4 and also the finer fleeces going into nearby baskets).

I hope I was somewhat helpful with activities like moving bales around and/or out of the way, including at one point assisting in digging the scale out from under a small mountain of wool so it could be used.

A couple of hours later I made my way between bales to the downstairs and found a bit of wool to ship back for workshops.

At the end of that same day (not raining much right then, but my energy was lagging), I went to the Shetland Library to see what interesting things they had. I'd already made my first couple of trips to the archives, and in the course of my rambles had learned about a couple of documents I wanted to see that were at the library. I found some others, too.

One of them was a document about a marketing scheme that was never implemented. Nonetheless, it provides insight into some of the history of Shetland sheep and wool.

Sometimes what didn’t happen can be as important as what did.

On another day, I simply needed to take a break, and it was a gorgeous day for a change, so after visiting Jarlshof I ended up at Sumburgh Head, at the far south end of Shetland’s Mainland. I missed the annual puffin visitation by a few days, but it was beautiful with gannets and fulmars and shags, among other avians.

There’s a lot to see and learn at Sumburgh Head about natural history and lighthouses and more. And even more.

Although I need to stay focused on sheep and wool to make progress with my work, I also need to understand the contexts and cultures of which sheep and wool are a part. That means a certain amount of serendipity is useful—the trick is always figuring out how much is enough, and when I’m being pulled off track instead of just deepening my thought processes.

This visit was definitely in the latter realm—the good kind of peripheral excursion—because bits of knowledge I’d accumulated previously clicked into new thought-constellations. One of the exhibits where that happened was the radar hut, about the then-new technology and its importance in World War II. Last year on my trip to Orkney—the group of islands between Shetland and mainland Scotland—I had learned about the British fleet being at Scapa Flow in 1940. But being in the place where the intelligence was discovered that prevented its total and sudden destruction—a tiny building, staffed by young people with equipment so new they weren’t entirely certain how it would work—connected a lot of dots for me and stands out as a non-fiber highlight of this trip.

There are more dots of this type that I would like to connect in the future, some of them having to do with the ShetlandBus, an important part of the Norwegian resistance movement (also during World War II).

As is becoming very apparent, I did sort my ideas of where to go and what to do by what types of weather would accommodate the activities. And on another drizzly day, I made my way to the ShetlandCrofthouse Museum, representing a croft of about 1880.

I learned a lot on this trip about crofting, which (to oversimplify) is the traditional agricultural/residential portion of many Shetlanders’ lives. It’s not farming, in that crofting represents only a portion of what a family would do for a living. And crofting has a lot to do with the ownership and management of sheep and of different parts of the landscape. I have a post in process that will provide a bit of information on what sheep I saw in which locations. Crofts are a big part of comprehending what goes on with sheep breeding, and therefore wool production and textile crafting.

Speaking of which, there were sample garment stretchers hanging by the fireplace in the croft house museum.

Up on top of one of the box beds was a spinning wheel—and, over on the right, a sweater frame.

Looking UP in historic residences of this type often results in the discovery of textile equipment. It’s nice, though, when the textiles themselves are a significant and appropriate part of the eye-level setting as well, as is this hap (everyday) shawl on a stretching frame.

I stayed a bit longer at the museum than I planned—and didn’t get down to the water mill—because it was pouring. But when the rain let up, I got another reward for looking UP.

August 16, 2014

It was easy to spend most of my time around the sheep area at the Cunningsburgh show. There was a lot going on. Initially sheep were arriving and getting settled into their pens, although by the time I got there at 8:45 most were in place.

This is a not-quite-complete view of the sheep section. Shetlands were along the two rows adjacent to the ditch. Closer to the buildings and tents were the sheep of other breeds (mostly rams used in crossing) and the crossbreds.

Here’s a view of the end with the crossbreds (to the left and back in relation to the photo above).

And here are some Shetlands.

Shetlands can (and should) be “stroppy,” or lively. One was a bit too lively and escaped, not through the inadequately secured gate (which would have put it within the confines of a corridor) but over the outside barricade.

That photo was taken when Elizabeth Johnston and I were briefly blocking it from one direction and two other folks were blocking it from other directions.

It went over the ditch and back a couple of times, while another responsible party took over from our direction. The trick in getting sheep to go where you want them to is not being too direct about the whole process or they’ll bolt. Especially Shetlands.

When this one was captured, it was put in JAIL, with a barricade over the top of the outside half of its pen.

Not all the sheep at the show were Shetlands, although there were certainly plenty of those. In the next photo, the sheep in the front with the white blaze is, not surprisingly, a Zwartbles (black-with-a-blaze). Behind it are some Suffolk rams, dyed orange for the occasion.

Someone I met had asked one of the judges why the vivid and unnatural color had been applied. The answer appeared to be that this was so people could tell where the ram was when he was in with a group of ewes out on the hills. I’ve also heard of sheep being dyed colors either to prevent thievery or for reasons of playfulartistry.

Here’s a closer photo of a young Suffolk ram.

And an undyed one, behind a Shetland that won a lot of ribbons—in part to show the size differences between the sheep. The ram in the background isn’t even one of the biggest ones. Admittedly, the Shetland is a young ewe, but she’s full-size Shetland.

There was a handful of Scottish Blackfaces.

And some Texels.

And quite a few Cheviots.

The Shetlands were in three groups: white, moorit, and “any other colour."

Judging started at about 10 a.m. and ended around noon.

First the individual classes were judged: many of them, including (for the white sheep) tup (ram) older than three years (“aged”), tup two and three years, tup one year, tup lamb; ewe, ewe with lamb(s) at foot, ewe lamb, gimmer (young female not bred yet), ewe with crossbred lamb(s) at foot. Similar but not identical groups for the moorit and “any colour not included above” groups. I’m just looking at Shetland classes now, because that was where I paid attention.

After the individual classes had been completed, cross-class judging occurred within each group (example: Best Coloured Shetland Sheep), and then across the categories (champions and reserve champions and best of opposite sex).

One of the award decisions within the colored sheep section came down to a choice between this handsome ram:

and this lovely ewe:

Almost all of the judging took place with the sheep staying in their individual pens, but in this case the judge had the two sheep brought into a single pen for side-by-side comparison.

His final decision seemed to come down to extreme niceties of wool quality. (By the way, all of these sheep had been rooed (had shed their wool) or been shorn relatively recently.)

They were very close, and he examined the wool at a number of places on each sheep, taking his time about it.

The ewe took home the ribbon, although on a different day the ram might have.

Isn’t this a handsome ram (tup)? One of the things I learned just by hanging around the sheep pens is that you can tell the age of a ram by the growth sections on his horns. This fellow is four years old.

One of my favorite Shetland sheep wasn’t even part of the big judging process. It was in the children’s pets category.

And on looking at the show catalog, I’ve just discovered that I completely missed the sheepdog classes. Well, I may need to come back another year.

April 13, 2014

Friday’s post about my visit to help with shearing a lot of Shetland sheep, like that trip itself, requires an array of thank-yous that would not fit within even my generally overlong post tolerances. Neither that post nor the trip that was its subject would have happened without the Dreaming of Shetland project, which was conceived by Donna Druchunas one morning in February 2013 and has ended up being much larger than she could possibly have imagined—or she would perhaps never have mentioned it out loud, although I’m amazed, glad, and grateful that she did.

Donna was aware that I wanted to continue my research into sheep and wools, following the completion of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, but I didn’t have ideas about how to support that work. While Fleece and Fiber counts as one of the major accomplishments of my life and dedicating four solid years to the project was one of the best decisions I’ve ever been backed into (by myself and others), income to authors from book publishing tends not to do much in the way of covering expenses, except if those authors are, say, folks like Stephen King. I knew what I wanted to do to follow up on that work but not how I would manage it.

I’m also both reserved (except when I’m talking about wool or sheep—as some of you may have discovered) and Midwestern by birth and upbringing (motto: Do Not Ask for Help, Just Work Harder). Thus I have been stunned, delighted, and flummoxed by the outpouring of support embodied in this project.

Here’s some of what the Dreaming of Shetland project has meant, and accomplished, so far:

2013 was a tough year in my life, and included a series of deaths of people and spirits close and important to me.

Places I was able to go and things I was able to do because of Dreaming of Shetland not only furthered the research project but made the year far more positive and forward-looking than it would otherwise have been.

The first “extra” came in mid-May, when I stayed in the Midwest for a couple of days after teaching at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival and took a side trip to Indiana to visit Theresa Gygi’s flock of fine-fleece Shetlands at Under the Son Farm. This was not all that long after lambing, and there were both plenty of bouncing young ones and lots of fleeces to look at and learn about.

Greencastle, Indiana, May 2013

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While I was at the farm, I got an emergency phone call from my sister. I flew home, and then to Washington to be with my mother during her final week, and for a while longer with the rest of the family in the aftermath of her death.

One week after Mom died, I was at the North American Shetland Sheepbreeders’ Association (NASSA) annual meeting at the Estes Park Wool Market, looking at and thinking about and talking with people who know Shetland sheep. Mom was a big supporter of my work, even after the dementia removed a lot of her ability to remember the details and the stroke severely limited her ability to talk. She would have liked that I was in good company just then, doing work close to my heart.

Like the Indiana trip, my participation in that event was possible because of the initial purchasers of the Dreaming of Shetland e-book. It was one of the most healing things on the planet that I could have been doing. Thank you.

Estes Park, Colorado, June 2013

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In August, my daughter and I were able to take a detour on another trip and visit the Hilger Hereford Ranch in Montana. We got to see some of the sheep up in the mountain area where they work on weed control. I’m fascinated by the adaptability of this breed to different landscapes. The dry mountain western U.S. provides a dramatic contrast to Shetland.

Gates of the Mountains, Montana, August 2013

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Last fall, shortly after my friend Ginny’s and my cousin Christie’s deaths, I flew to Scotland, including time in Orkney and Shetland. This trip had been planned long in advance and the ticket and many other arrangements were already covered. What the Dreaming of Shetland project made possible was my gathering of resources to bring home for study: books, videos, and other treasures. It also allowed me to visit historical sites, and helped with lodging and meals. It was like having very specialized and effective wings. Thank you.

Shetland (Mainland), October 2013

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Also in 2013, Jeane deCoster of ElementalAffects Yarns asked if I’d like to come to Montana in spring 2014 to help with the shearing of Catherine Campbell’s large flock of Shetlands. Catherine was at Estes Park for the NASSA meeting, but because of a death in her family we didn’t get to meet then—thus the excursion in August. Because of Dreaming of Shetland, I already knew that I could say yes to the invitation extended by Catherine and Jeane with some assurance that when the time came I’d be able to afford the trip. Last month, I did go to Montana and help with shearing—thanks to Dreaming of Shetland.

Gates of the Mountains, Montana, March 2014

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Since November 2012, Janet Ellison of Fibre-East in the UK and I have been working on the visa situation with regard to US fiber instructors teaching in the British Isles. We’re about 90% finished with that job and it looks about 90% certain that I’ll be teaching at Fibre-East at the end of July. Because I’ll be so close (relatively speaking), I plan to go back to Shetland for more research in conjunction with that trip. Even though I filled every minute of my time there in October 2013 and learned a ton, I barely began to scratch the surface. This year I’ll be able to take my questions to their next level. This is also something that Dreaming of Shetland is making possible. Thank you all yet again.

What you are all accomplishing with this project? It is huge.

What I will do because of this project? More research! And my best to share the results, in as many ways and through as many channels as possible. Right now my head is buzzing with possibilities that aren’t coming together yet—but they will. This is just part of the process, and part of what makes it exciting.

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And now to be specific. . . .

THANK YOU! to

the instigators and creators of the Dreaming of Shetland project, without which I could not have done anywhere near as much research as I have already accomplished (with more to come):

the contributors of content to the Dreaming of Shetland project (check out one or two links a day and enjoy their abundance of creativity and generosity to the communities of which they are a part, including this fiber one . . . and I sure hope I haven't missed anyone! Let me know if I have . . . ):

every individual who has pitched in for a copy of Dreaming of Shetland. Thank you! It's an amazing value for you folks to receive, and it is making an incredible difference to what I can accomplish in learning about sheep and wool, information that I am sharing, and will continue to share, with the fiber community—as thoroughly as I can!

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The initial information written about the Dreaming of Shetland project said that it would help me "spend the next year exploring Shetland sheep and Shetland wool.” We’re already over a year out, and I’m still going strong, with a lot of work done and the sense that I’m still just getting started, because it’s such a rich subject to study. I have many topics I want to explore about sheep and wool in general, and the Shetland work is foundational to them all. I thought that would be the case when I started (thus the focus), and the more deeply I go into the interlaced topics the more apparent it becomes that this is true. I’m going to be on this path for a while more.

Right now, I mostly need time: time to process references that I’ve located; to think; to spin; to bring my thoughts together; to write—and to do more research. Thanks to Dreaming of Shetland, those activities are all in the works.

I get notifications when people buy copies of the book. Each time one of those comes into my mailbox, I think two things: first, “Wow! somebody else gets to enjoy this amazing publication and discover the work of these gifted contributors!" and second, “Oh, my, this is another vote of confidence in what I’m doing"—and then I tell myself, “Just take it in—breathe, accept, and go back to work."

The Dreaming of Shetland book got so big (and was so much work for the volunteer editors and designers) that it’s being released in sections. Buy once, get them all. It’s electronic-format only (believe me, in any other format something like this would never have gotten off the ground). It’s almost, but not quite, complete as I write this. And it’s a treasure that will bring joy of many sorts to many people for many years.

So thank you, everyone.

And now I’ll get back to work.

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P.S. One of the things I would like to have access to is genetic data (and analysis) from different flocks of Shetland sheep showing their interrelationships, as well as their relationships to other breeds, specifically North Ronaldsay, Soay, and old-style Norwegian short-tails (spaelsaus). If anybody knows where we might get our hands on information of this type—now or in the future—please get in touch with me! We’re working on some leads to generate this kind of resource material, but it’s all in a to-be-developed state and rather complicated to pull off. Which doesn’t mean we won’t figure out how to get it done. But there’s no point in re-doing work that has already been, or is being, undertaken. So far, we don’t know of any. We’d love to hear that it exists. The “we” is me and a bunch of other folks who are traveling parallel paths on this journey of discovery.

April 11, 2014

Wow! I get to write a blog post! I greatly enjoy doing them, and it’s been a while because I’ve been (1) on the road and/or (2) beset by a lack of ability to connect to the internet. Item 1 has been temporarily resolved. We're still working on item 2.

The Orkney/Shetland posts are not complete—we were just about to visit with some North Ronaldsay sheep—and will continue, but a couple of digressions will intervene. Between March 8 and April 7, I was

in Montana to help with shearing of a large Shetland flock;

in Washington to teach at the Explore 4 Spring Retreat;

home briefly to wash and pack wool and prepare handouts and presentations; and then

in Iowa to give two talks for the Iowa Federation of Handweavers and Spinners and a workshop for the Northeast Iowa Weavers and Spinners Guild (post here about the Iowa Federation gathering, with pictures of some vendors with fiber that I saw on a quick run-through and I meant to get back and buy but it was gone by the time I had a chance—good for the vendors!).

Not much writing time in there.

Here, though, are some photos and comments on the trip to Montana.

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I arrived in time for day two of the four days of shearing. The first order of business on that day was bringing in the group of sheep that we would shear. There’s a lot of landscape on the Hilger Hereford Ranch, which is one of the oldest ranches in Montana and operates under a conservation program. The sheep have a primary job of weed control and do their work in several flocks. The wool crop becomes lovely Elemental Affects yarns under the careful attention of Jeane deCoster. I was at the ranch thanks to Jeane’s introduction and at the invitation of rancher Catherine Campbell. (Catherine doesn’t sell individual fleeces.)

See the sheep? Those dots in the distance were the wethers (castrated males, kept for weed-eating and fleece) and lambs. They needed to be rounded up and brought into the corrals.

Off to bring them back: Denis on the four-wheeler, with Emma riding on the back. There are a lot of both herding and guardian dogs at the ranch. Emma is the herding dog who is most avid.

I’d show you some photos of what guardian dogs do during shearing (mostly sleep), but I seem to need to download more software and fix some problems with iPhoto. It won’t export any images right now. Computers have been problematic lately.

Back to sheep-gathering. We humans spread out to form a psychological barrier to keep the flock from going past where they needed to be. The goal was to funnel them into the corral, which wouldn’t work if they took off for the mountains in the other direction.

Here they come!

Getting closer. Emma and Denis keeping them in line and moving: fast enough but not too fast.

Human fencing moved deliberately and slowly closer to push the sheep into the corral. That beige structure was the temporary shelter used for storing the fleece between shearing and bagging.

Emma making sure everybody goes where they’re supposed to.

Job done, but not at ease. Emma was always on duty!

Here are the sheep in that group ready to be shorn. What a wonderful array of colors and textures!

Always two shearers, often three. Note Emma’s posture. The sheep come in from the back of left of this photo, and leave through a door just behind the two shearers working here. There’s another door into this barn, located where I was standing when I took the photo. It leads to where the fleeces are graded and sorted. It also leads to The Outside World (without fencing).

Shorn sheep!

While this day of shearing was bright and clear, predictions called for rain on the next day. So a good part of the afternoon was spent with part of the crew thinking through how to keep the sheep dry. And the rest of us, but most importantly the sheep. The plan was to put a bunch of sheep into that gray building at the back left, and create enough shelter for them to be moved into a section of the red barn, and then into a chute, and then to the shearers’ area. The timbers extending from the barn in this photo were erected temporarily to hold a tarp that would keep the wool dry while it was being processed post-shearing. That’s a grading/skirting table in the front of the image, and the green structure behind held two more grading/skirting tables that became the primary working area when the weather shifted.

The weather certainly did shift. This was the morning of the third day (my second day). (While we’re here, look at the timbers from which that barn is constructed. Wow.)

This is how the sheep stayed dry enough while moving from the gray building into the barn where the shearing took place.

Here’s a bunch in the holding area in the red barn, awaiting the next step.

And four sheep in the chute, up next for shearing. Each sheep has an identifying number, and a record card has been printed out for every sheep before it reaches this point. While the sheep are in the chute, the cards are pulled and each card goes on a clipboard by the shearer who works on the sheep, and then accompanies the fleece to the grading area.

On duty, regardless of weather.

After I’d spent a bunch of time in the grading area, learning Jeane’s system and getting an idea of the flow, I began to learn how to “throw” fleeces. The job starts with assisting the shearer, if he wants assistance. Some don’t, but a helper can gently move the fleece out of the way so the lines that the shears follow can be seen and accessed more easily. It’s important never to tug on the wool: that pulls the skin up and makes it vulnerable to being cut. It’s also important to remember that the mechanical shears can damage the shearer and the assistant as well, and to keep fingers well clear of their blades.

Gathering up a fresh fleece: I learned two systems for grabbing hold of it. HOW you do this is important, because. . . .

. . . the goal is to be able to throw it—to flip it open and spread it out, tips upward, on the skirting/grading table, all in one piece as it came off the sheep and ready for the next step. On each fleece, you get ONE try at throwing it correctly.

(Many thanks to Sue for the pictures that include me!)

At this stage, we evaluated the fleeces. We also marked the cards with the state of the fleece and comments. This is an adult ewe who is six years old (see the notes at the bottom, in addition to her birth date). She has had very good fleeces every year. The “keep forever!” is an unusual comment.

This year's assessment will get into the database and print out on next year's card.

If fleeces were not of high enough quality for either mill processing or handspinning (for any number of reasons, mostly breaks or cotting), they went into a bin to go to a felter.

Those that were sound—most of them—went to the beige structure and were classified by color. Blacks are at the back. Whites are at the front. Gray tones are on the right, brown tones on the left, going from dark at the back to light at the front.

This was a mid-brown bin.

Obviously, the sheep don’t grown their wool in a consistent set of specified colors. There were a lot of judgment calls about which bin to put any given fleece into. Jeane also shifted some fleeces around so she would get the tonal balances right in the batches of wool that would come to her from the mill. It’s all intuitive at this point.

Then we hand-packed wool from the various bins into bales. It’s pretty amazing how much wool you can cram into one of these containers if you work systematically and keep at it. Each bale was a specific color run. The goal is to pack evenly and fully: no wrinkles or gaps or unfilled corners.

Ah. On the rainy day, one wether escaped past the shearers and made his way out into the Great Beyond, through the open door that was the exit for the fleeces. He made it past several people and I was just coming toward the door to retrieve a fleece when he came pelting toward me. I tried to grab him, and found that I was briefly riding him and then I was sitting on my butt in the mud and he was off into the open.

It took about twenty minutes to get him back into the shearing area, and he went straight into the chute (which at that point didn’t have any other sheep in it). He wasn’t happy.

But his fleece was beautiful, and Jeane sent it home with me as a souvenir.

After the final day of shearing, the stuffed bags of wool—about 1200 pounds—got loaded into the stock trailer for their trip to the mill. That’s Jeane, making sure everything is under control.

The owners had just cleared and organized the space, and then we went and filled it all up with wool.

We had a great visit with Ed and Sue James, who own the mill. They make quilt batts and pillows and all sorts of things. I left wanting a futon made of wool. (Yes, Small Wonders, at that link, uses Sugar Loaf mill’s processing for its futons.)

Then it was time for me to leave Montana and go to Washington for the spring retreat.

Meanwhile, at the ranch, it’s lambing time. Wish I could have stayed! But it's true, the retreat was wonderful. . . .

There's a P.S. to this post that will be up very soon. It's going to take me longer to assemble than I planned because I got an idea about how to do it better. . . .

February 03, 2014

This is another post about my trip to mainland Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland, although it's also another digression from the chronological/topical sequence. It's about fleeces.

And because my blog posts are never long enough, I'll add that the Rare Breeds Survival Trusthas just released its 2014 Watchlist of at-risk breeds. New to the list is Devon Closewool, previously geographically but not numerically endangered; new to last year's list was Border Leicester. Moving to improved categories are North Ronaldsay, Leicester Longwool, and Hill Radnor. Let's keep on using these special wools and supporting the shepherds and their flocks! And now, on a very closely related topic. . . .

____

We hear about terroir with regard to foods, for the most part: the concept began, I think, with wine, and refers to "the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate." The dictionary most easily accessed from my place in the coffee shop this morning goes on to discuss goût de terroir, which means "the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced" (the quotes are from the quick-reference dictionary on my Mac computer).

The borrowing of concepts from one area of interest to another can lead to meaning-drift in the terms. That can be beneficial—in the way that it sheds light on the new topic by viewing it through an established lens from elsewhere—or it can be detrimental, because the way the concept applied in the first case needs to be tweaked (and thus its meaning shifted) in order to apply to the second.

An example is the terms tog and thel (þel), which refer, respectively, to the outer and inner coats of Icelandic fleeces. I hear these words used with reference to other breeds, and even other species, but I personally think they need to stay with the Icelandic wools because while they mostly apply to the others reasonably well, there are other words that work for the non-Icelandics and in my experience there seem to be related characteristics of the Icelandic wools that don't always show up in the other contexts.

So while I'm not ready to abscond with the word terroir to describe wools, I can easily trace its root back to the Latin terra, meaning earth, and note that there are longstanding connections between specific types (and breeds) of sheep and the landscapes within which they thrive, and I'll show you a little of why I am thinking about those things this week.

____

I didn't intend to buy any fleeces while I was on my trip.

Okay, now that you've stopped laughing, there are reasons. I was there to study the sheep and the wool, not to acquire fiber. And I wasn't at all sure about how I could get a bunch of stuff back to the States: there were major matters of logistics and cost and I wasn't at all confident that I would have time or resources to deal with them.

However.

I left the Scottish Smallholder and Grower Festival with two Ryeland fleeces, thinking ahead to the Explore 4 Retreat in Friday Harbor, Washington, in March, and that if the fleeces turned out to be suitable I thought the people who come to the retreat might really enjoy them. I should say that I don't announce the breeds ahead of time, because I need to know that I have appropriate fibers in hand—both quality and quantity—before I commit to covering a breed in Explore 4. As you'll see, that's something that takes time and can involve cliffhangers.

In any case, friends offered to help with the logistics of getting the fleeces back. And as time went on, it became clear that their offer was, indeed, serious, so I got the Ryelands.

As those who read the last post noted, I then bought a few fleeces on North Ronaldsay.

And by the time I reached Shetland, it seemed inappropriate not to bring back samples of the wool that is central to my current research. Especially when I reached the room of the Jamieson & Smith building in Lerwick where they put fleeces that have been pulled aside for handspinners to explore. "Samples" in this case involved whole fleeces.

I wanted a range of types, and so I picked out fleeces with varied characteristics and colors.

Jeni Reid took that photo. I really was that happy, and I'd been very reserved about what I bought in comparison with what I wanted to buy. And in comparison to what some other folks bought—! Well, I hardly bought anything at all.

Back at the self-catering unit I was sharing with friends, those friends who were egging me on in all this, we all evaluated our acquisitions (another photo by Jeni).

As it turned out, most of my fleeces were significantly wetter than I anticipated or than they'd felt in the cooler wool room. I think the warmth of the apartment may have begun the physical process involved in wool releasing water. Wool can absorb approximately 30 percent of its weight in liquid without feeling wet—one of the fiber's magical qualities, with the exact amount varying by the individual configurations of the structural components of the fibers. (That was a mouthful. Wool fibers are all "built" the same way, but the sizes and relationships of the building blocks vary, and so, therefore, do the precise behaviors.)

Of the eight Shetland fleeces that I bought, I was only comfortable sending three back home directly from Shetland (which was the most cost-effective and easiest transportation option). The others needed drying-out.

Along with the two Ryeland fleeces and the three North Ronaldsay fleeces, five of the Shetlands went back to mainland Scotland with me and spent time losing some of their moisture. The friends I was staying with had a guest room with a wire-frame mattress support, so once we set the mattress aside we could get good air circulation around the wool, and they also handily own a dehumidifier.

So of the total thirteen fleeces (! how did that happen?), eight spent time in the closed room with the water being coaxed out of them. Yes, there was a lot of water. I have weight numbers and at some point will calculate how much water. Occasional canine supervision was required.

It took a while to figure out how to ship this array to the States as economically as possible. The method finally chosen wasn't cheap, but it worked well. The three boxes arrived a few days ago—after one of our recent snowstorms.

I don't expect the customs agents to have memorized the entire bulky complicated mess of import regulations, and I am willing to bet that most haven't seen raw wool before, and that when faced with it they might be likely to err on the conservative side and reject a perfectly legal shipment. Thus each box carried a copy of the appropriate page from the US Department of Agriculture's regulations pertaining to incoming shipments of raw fibers, with the appropriate bits highlighted. (There's a PDF of that page here.)

The three boxes—about 18 kg (40 pounds) in all (part of that was books)—came through without a hitch. Except for that one ripped spot on the end of one of the boxes. Nothing was lost.

I'd continued to consider featuring Ryeland at the upcoming Explore 4 Fiber Retreat in March, but until the wool was actually here, that wasn't something I could count on or announce. (Some of the fibers I'm planning to use for that retreat are still on the sheep's backs, fortunately here in the U.S. I do have backup plans if the timing for shearing, or washing, ends up going off-schedule.)

So I was especially happy to see the two Ryeland fleeces, one dark and one white, come out of the box.

Isn't this one pretty? That's it's identifying number tied on. Kind of fun to have. Nice typography. This fleece had to go first in the line-up for washing because I envisioned it having a job to do in the near future at that workshop. (I had washed the white fleece while in Scotland. It dried while I was off in Orkney and Shetland.)

I love watching the scouring liquid (in this case, Unicorn Power Scour) do its work, removing the grease with very little intervention from me.

I did run into a slight problem. That particular Ryeland fleece, with its shades of dark and light grays and browns, washed up so beautifully that I began to think I needed to keep part of it for myself—at least enough so I could make a hat or mittens. (Friends suggested what I know, which is that these items become teaching samples that become extremely useful in helping people understand how to use different types of fleeces.) To keep some fiber, even a little bit, I'd need to find, and have shipped, yet another Ryeland fleece in time for the workshop. And this time of year is not ideal for acquiring fleece: last year's clip is gone, and this year's clip is still keeping the sheep warm.

So I wrote hopeful, inquiring e-mails and turned to washing one of the Shetlands. This was the one I'd called #4 and written down as being light gray in color. It's what Oliver Henry, the wool buyer and classer at Jamieson and Smith in Shetland, called "toppy." (I bought Shetlands with several fleece configurations, for use in a fall workshop.) And a truly beautiful gray.

So I began to set up the washing trays.

Here's the first rinse, and the darkness of the water surprised me, because I usually only see that much color when there's been obvious dirt or mud on a fleece.

Well, this is interesting. Second soaking:

Wool is full of surprises. About this time, I woke up. PEAT!

Shetland is full of peat, and the sheep spend their time among it. It colors the streams and rivers a deep coffee color.

And now its fine, fine particles were washing off the fleece in my tub.

And the wool was growing lighter in tone.

Here's a picture I took of cut stacks of peat, which is used for fuel.

And a close-up.

Peat is a topic for consideration in its own right, forming amazingly slowly and deserving of conservation. It saturates the landscape.

As do sheep.

As it turns out, both traveled home with me, the peat so fine that it simply appeared to color the fiber, and because of its fineness to color the fleece gray rather than peat-brown, and not to be obvious at all. What I ended up with was a beautiful, gleaming white fleece.

It's common for spinners to buy what they think is a lovely light brown fleece at a festival and to be disappointed, when they get it home and wash it, to discover that it's actually light gray. This always seems sad to me, not because it wasn't what they expected but because it usually is a gorgeous gray, suddenly not appreciated for being itself.

In this case, yes, I did think I had a lovely gray and I got a white.

In a way, this single fleece reminds me of two of the moods I enjoyed in Shetland: the muted. . . .

. . . and the sparkling.

If that isn't a fine thing, I don't know what is.

Terroir at its most basic and pragmatic, and at its most fleeting and suggestive.

_

Left: unwashed. Right: clean and ready to go.

___

P.S. on the additional Ryeland fleece: Good news to come in another post. It's already here. I'll wash it soon.

August 10, 2013

In February, friends came up with an amazing and unexpected idea to help me do the next phase of research into sheep and wool, which involves a study of Shetland sheep and their fleeces. Shetlands are really complex, even controversial, and consideration of their development and current situation encompasses many questions relating to fibers, regardless of type or breed. They're a microcosm of the wool world—physically, historically, and culturally. I wrote about "Why Shetlands?" in an earlier blog post, and that piece was initially constructed for and appears in the Dreaming of Shetland e-book that is coming into being through these folks' amazing and unexpected idea.

Their idea: to ask a selection of talented people each to contribute a pattern, an essay, or some other item to what would be combined into an e-book anthology, the sales of which would be used to fund my Shetland inquiries: essentially, a community fundraiser, operated informally (albeit rigorously) and in ongoing fashion. Here's the associated website.

The gist: They asked me to meet with them before lunch one day at an event we were mutually participating in. We sat down in the empty dining room. They told me that they had "an idea" and that all I would need to do was "say yes" and "have a PayPal account." Well, I do have a business PayPal account, which I use mostly to buy fiber and books (about fiber, surprised?).

So they gave me the outline: people within the knitting community who might have an interest in seeing what I would come up with in the way of research would be asked to contribute a pattern each to a collection. The plan was to have the whole project happen quickly, so that patterns that would be included would likely already exist—for example, a neat design that was still in the files because it had never found a public home.* The instigators (more on them both below and in a future post) would assemble, design, and set up an e-book collection through Ravelry (to keep this as simple as such an outrageously ambitious endeavor could be). All proceeds would go to my research.

* It only sort of worked that way. A lot of people got inspired to create original designs.

I was, and am, gobsmacked. I prefer to be stubbornly self-reliant and can be more independent than most cats. Yet I am also obstinate about my research, which was being implemented at about 1/1000 the speed that I envisioned, for lack of resources.

I looked across the table at their inspired faces. I thought about the sheep. I thought about the wool. I thought about knitters and weavers and spinners of the future. I thought about all of us now, and how much we appreciate knowledge that deepens our craft and our appreciation for life. I thought about how I am relatively reserved (yes, I can talk fine in public—when I'm talking about fibers) and that this would put me in a bit of a new spotlight—and I decided that the spotlight would be on the sheep, and I could just be a lens. And I thought that at this point in my life, I'm in a position to ask questions and know how to dig for information, if not answers, and to put together what I discover in ways that others may find interesting and useful. I thought about the sheep again—all the sheep, in addition to the Shetlands—and all of the lovely, dramatically versatile and dissimilar wools they grow, wools that we need to know better. And I envisioned that at the end of it all, lots more people would be connected to, and know the joy of, the sheep and their fleeces. And that it could be fun for everyone involved. (And a lot of work. I had no illusions about that. They didn't, either, although like all good things it has become more than anyone expected.)

I slowly nodded yes, making myself say the word out loud as well. I knew that, because of the people who were already involved and those who might be, this would be a big deal.

Yes.

For the most part, I was asked to pretty much stay out of it—to, if I had a spare moment, go research sheep and wool. So I was asked to write the "Why Shetlands?" piece and to review the sheep photos that would be on the cover (to determine whether they were of the Shetland breed, or simply sheep of other breeds in Shetland). While I've seen the photography for the projects (both the photos and the designs make me want to pick up my needles, and in one case I already have), the book is as new to me as it will be to those who choose to buy it.

The scope: The project got quite a bit bigger and more complicated than the initial intention (doesn't everything?). As matters proceeded, the organizers needed to put a cut-off date on participation in order to actually make it happen within anyone's lifetime. They also decided to release the book in sections, in order to make the logistics (and the file sizes) manageable, although signing up for it once will, over the next several months, yield the whole thirty patterns and associated articles and photographs.

In the interval between the idea's origin in February and the initial release a few days ago, two things became apparent to me. One was that without some practical help, it would take years, or decades, to accomplish anything toward this research, and the second was that the moral and psychological support of the idea alone has already been hugely beneficial.

A quick note: Even though the release of the e-book has been "soft," without a lot of fanfare and the "announcement" mostly by word-of-mouth so far, the initial proceeds have already enabled me to obtain resources that have previously been very difficult or impossible for me to access.

Whose idea was this?

The idea came from Donna Druchunas, and Anne Berk immediately stepped in to collaborate, enlisting her husband, Bill Berk, to do the photography. Donna's husband Dominic Cotignola provided invaluable, and mostly unheralded, technical help.

But listing those individual responsibilities obscures the closely integrated teamwork that even from a distance I was fully aware of, as they nurtured a spark into a whole series of warm campfires to offer to the fiber world.

It says "for Deborah Robson," but I'm just the conduit here. Although yes, I have a dream that this research and our mutually growing efforts and knowledge will have a long-lasting and positive effect on our fiber activities and on communities' and individuals' and several landscapes' health.

Whose work is featured?

The designers and researchers and creative souls who have graciously and enthusiastically come forward to make Dreaming of Shetland a reality include:

I'm looking forward to seeing and reading it myself! One of the reasons it took me a few days to put this post together was that when I got the preview section last week, I read Donna's dedication and had to compose myself. I always see the shortfalls of what I do: I want to do more than any day permits, and I want to raise all of our boats together. Donna's words let me see that even when my reach exceeds my grasp, I may be getting a handle on some things in a way that's helpful.

So if you are inclined (with all those incredibly talented people involved, I don't know how anyone could resist, even if this were "just" a regular book), there's information on the website (of course they put together a website {wry grin}).

Meanwhile, I need to get back to the quest. As soon as my eyes quit misting up and I can see clearly again.

May 11, 2013

I love the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I love other festivals, too, but Maryland was my first wool festival (many years ago, when it was substantial but significantly smaller than it is now), and always gives me a feeling that I'm going home to a place and a community (of humans and animals) that exists fleetingly but regularly. I've almost always worked when I was at the festival, either in the Interweave Press booth, or researching and gathering materials for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, or, last year and this year, teaching.

For two reasons, this will be a brief and random report on Maryland 2013. First, I'm home just long enough to prepare to teach at a new-to-me festival, the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. (There are still a few spaces left in the two-day workshop, 3Ls and 3Cs—it's about a variety of related sheep with diverse wools both from the UK (Leicester Longwool, Border Leicester, and Bluefaced Leicester) and from New Zealand and Australia (Coopworth, Corriedale, and Cormo), and about how breeds are developed and determined, all with fiber in hand.) Second, I have very few photos from the five days because I was teaching. (I do have a few, thanks to some participants in the groups. But when I teach, I teach.) I had Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon "off," so that's pretty much when I was able to take pictures. And meet up with people I had appointments with. And buy fleeces for future workshops.

One thing I always like to do at festivals is visit the animals and see what kinds of photos I can capture. This Corriedale and an Oxford were amazingly friendly every time I stopped by (which was as often as I could).

While zooming through the Main Building (which I still think of as Building V), I spotted these Hog Island sheep (a rare breed), available in knitting-kit form:

I was especially taken with the variegated yarn for the horns. The kits are produced by Yarn by Mills. They aren't on the website yet, so if you're intrigued you'll need to e-mail Margy Mills at yarnbymills AT yahoo.com to ask about them.

Then, of course, I had to visit George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate's Hog Island sheep, located as usual in the breed display section of the barns.

Here's another photo:

One of the ewes was being placed with a new young owner through a program that puts rare-breed sheep in the care of young shepherds, and the young woman who would be taking the ewe home showed her (with help from Lisa from Mount Vernon) in the Parade of Breeds on Sunday afternoon:

Hog Island sheep have quite the story to tell. I'll be including the breed as one of four locally sourced wools in a four-day retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore in late October of this year.

I also bought two Jacob fleeces with different characteristics for the same retreat.

And got some photos of Jacobs. They tend to be very photogenic, as well as nice sheep!

This wee one seemed to have been hand-carried throughout the festival, as far as I could tell. I kept seeing it, always with an accompanying human.

And then Kristen Rosser, who is working with Emily Chamelin, showed how the job gets done with electric shears (she commented while Kevin sheared, and he commented while she did).

Emily and I managed to meet up on the fly and talk sheep, which was one of the highlights of the festival for me although I don't have photos—just a great link.

On Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I led barn walkabouts, which are a whole lot of fun even though they involve a bunch of on-the-fly changes of approach and plans (depending on what's happening in the barns). We alternate walking through the barns and looking at specific breeds of sheep, while either I or the shepherds talk about them. . . . (Thanks to Joanne Jaeger for the next photo.)

. . . and finding a quiet place to discuss questions that have come up or give an overview of what we'll be seeing next. (Thanks to Melissa Weaver Dunning for this next photo.)

We did the walkabouts for the first time last year, and there were a few scheduling tweaks that made them work better this year (like: not trying to do one during the Suffolk lamb auction in the same building!) and a few logistical shifts that made them a little more challenging (lots more breeds on display—like more than 40!—which meant one of the aisles was very narrow, but we managed).

When I worked the festival at the Interweave Press booth in years past, representing Spin-Off magazine, I used to go to the breed barns to take a break—there and to the sheepdog demos. I didn't have a free moment this year during any of the dog events, alas, so I missed them entirely.

But I did find a few fleeces to bring home for teaching workshops this year.

And more.

ALL of this wool will be distributed to other people, mostly in workshops. Well, I'll get to make some swatches as part of the ongoing research. Yesterday I washed up the first two bathtubs-full.

Wow, do I love the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!

And next week I'll be at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival, which I'm looking forward to experiencing for the first time. I hear there are still a few workshop spaces available. All of my workshops sold out at Maryland, and it would be fun if the one in Kentucky did, too! I'm bringing plenty of wool (including some of what's drying downstairs right now), so as long as there's an opening even walk-ins will work.

March 20, 2013

This follows the previous post and pertains to the reason for my next research area, Shetland sheep and wool, and to the impetus behind the Dreaming of Shetland project (website to come at dreamingofshetland.com).

Donna Druchunas sent a link to some fantastic photographs of Shetland and of sheep on Shetland.

Deb:

GORGEOUS pictures, and interestingly they point out some of the challenge in this whole project—or at least the sheep photos do!

The only sheep shown that I'd bet is a full Shetland is that ram with the curling horns (this is not a reason not to use the photos: all of the sheep shown grow Shetland wool because they grow wool on Shetland).

But the others don't have characteristics of the Shetland breed, most obviously the fluke-shaped tail (a short tail, narrower at its tip than at its base). That black-faced one is at least part, and possibly full, Suffolk. Some of the sheep that do have tails like Northern European short-tails don't have the Shetland body type.

COOL.

Not a reason not to use images. But I'd go with lambs or pictures of sheep in the distance or that ram.

Donna:

I guess we should include a short article about this topic because people will be wondering and interested. Would you want to do that or would it be too much? I would just want it to be "a letter from Deb" off the top of your head. Don't do any research FOR this, just outline the questions that come to your mind quickly and show why the research and further work is needed? Is that something you could do in 15 minutes or so?

[Insert a short interval here.]

Deb:

Well, more like 60 minutes, and it's definitely a "letter," not a "draft," much less finished piece. And now I need to quit, because the temptation is to revise and refine. . . .

______

Why Shetlands?

As I've recovered from the intense work involved in The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, the opportunities for future inquiry arise on all sides, and there are more fascinating possibilities than can be even listed, much less adequately considered, in a lifetime. Sheep and their wools continue to capture my interest and attention—even more than before, because of what I learned in writing the "big book." So the question over the past couple of years has been where next to invest my curiosity, since it won't be put to rest!

With about 1400 sheep breeds identified globally, I won't be able to cover them all in the years available to me, however many those are. The Sourcebook included fibers that English-speaking fiber folk might reasonably get their hands on. Natural next steps would include covering more sheep breeds from continental Europe, and that's a series of topics for which I'm collecting both fiber samples and reference books. It's a big enough area, and sufficiently complicated, that it will take years to manage. I'll be working on it.

At the same time, I've been ambushed by the Shetlands. This is a good thing. Shetlands were the most difficult breed to write up for the Sourcebook. They took the most time and raised serious questions that apply to all sheep, through all time, although not in as concentrated a form as for the Shetlands.

For publication in 2011 and 2012, Spin-Off magazine had me write up pieces on Soay sheep, Lincoln sheep, and a few puzzling aspects of wool quality. Also for 2012, The Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers asked if I would write an article on the history and development of British sheep breeds. Next, for 2013, PLY magazine tantalized me with the idea of researching the origins of sheep: how they became domesticated, how they traveled around the world, how people have shaped sheep to fit particular environments and how sheep have been willing partners, able to adapt and thrive on every continent except Antarctica. I knew when I said yes that none of these would be an easy assignment. I couldn't resist the questions behind them.

As I've followed these intriguing trails, the Shetlands kept cropping up on the edges, emblematic of ideas relating to thousands of years of history, and of human/animal interdependence, and of breed definition, and of unique (and diverse) textile traditions, and of local and global economics, and of what we fiber artists pick up to spin, or knit, or crochet, or weave—and whether we will have these materials to work with in the future, or not.

Shetlands are (American Livestock Breeds Conservancy) and are not (Rare Breeds Survival Trust) a rare breed. Looking closely, it becomes apparent that whether or not the breed as a whole (whatever that is defined as) is rare, some strains of it, including some of the fleece colors, are quite endangered. Shetlands cannot be easily categorized or described.

Sheep known by one or another group as Shetland sheep grow single-coated fleeces that are very fine or medium in quality; double-coated fleeces that contain several fiber types; crimpy fleeces; wavy fleeces; and everything in between. They grow this wool in multiple countries and landscapes, in flocks shaped by differing human intentions and pressures.

Shetlands connect to the earliest sheep, and they demonstrate what happens when humans influence a breed to fit alternate environments and to respond to economic pressures—in fact, they demonstrate this multiple times, in many ways.

When I was researching the Sourcebook, it was at the point that I read a well-informed account of wools describing Shetland as a "Down" wool that I determined that I needed to spend as much time as necessary coming up with a supportable definition of "Down" wools. [Added note: In the end, I don't include Shetlands within my definition of "Down" wools.]

Shetlands open many questions, for which there are almost certainly no right or definitive answers.

But I think that spending the next year (or more) of my life exploring Shetland sheep and Shetland wool in greater detail will illuminate many aspects of how rich and interesting our fiber world is—in ways that will apply to topics as small as the hats we put on our heads and as large as the global wool marketplace.

I can't wait. In fact, I haven't. I'm already deep into this project. The front page of my first notebook on the topic reads: "All wool, all good," and "What is Shetland wool about?" The study of Shetland sheep and their wool has already begun to reveal to me, and has the potential to show other people who care about these things, a lot about why it's true that "all wool" is "all good," and why we need to pay attention to both history and the future in order to maintain essential values related to being human and being responsible residents of the planet.